


A Special Gift: A Yuletide Vignette

by 12XU



Category: Maurice (1987), Maurice - E. M. Forster
Genre: A Happy Ending Was Imperative, Canon Gay Relationship, Christmas, Fluff, Kissing, Love, M/M, Post-Canon, The Greenwood, and a little bit of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 22:22:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9037058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/12XU/pseuds/12XU
Summary: Maurice and Alec’s first Christmas together, 1913: two counties away from Penge/Pendersleigh, in a greenwood of sorts.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeathFrisbee221](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathFrisbee221/gifts).



**1: Christmas Morning**

> ‘This place really int bad,’ Alec pronounced.
> 
> ‘It isn’t, is it?’ Maurice agreed. And he pulled the top blanket up higher and tighter around them both, wrapping it with special tenderness around Alec’s bare shoulders.

Despite the December cold outside, the dusting of snow in the hilltop woods surrounding them, and the frost on the sloping fields below, both of them had woken this morning – their first Christmas morning together – to find they were both still stark naked from the night before. Naked, but toasty warm: the piled blankets formed a seductively cosy nest; wood-embers still glowed in the tiny corner fireplace; and, more precious to them than either, the warmth of companionship and shared bodies. Alec knew how to keep a fire stoked, Maurice thought – in more ways than one. The freedom to have such thoughts – to live and love as they now did without shame – was still so new to him that he smiled inwardly, happily, at his own wantonness.

Strange to realise that it was only three months since Alec had initiated him so thoroughly during their long, thrilling and perilous, carnal night at that strange hotel.

Under their blankets, Maurice spooned closer to Alec, curling his long body snug against Alec’s spine, wrapped both arms around Alec’s chest and waist, and nuzzled blissfully into the unruly dark hair.

> ‘The people ’ere, too,’ Alec continued.

Maurice did not disagree as such, but this was a point on which – by nature, and perhaps by class – he was disposed to feel more cautious than Alec. It was true, old Edmund – a jocular, red-faced woodman of advancing years who seemed slightly deaf (‘You can call me Old Ed!’, he’d roared, too close to Alec’s ear), who’d taken on Maurice and Alec as extra hands – seemed all right. And so did the members of Old Ed’s motley, confusingly connected, extended family they’d met so far in the few weeks they’d been settled here. And so did the other villagers, albeit eccentric, in this funny remote place.

Old Ed even seemed perfectly happy to accept the sketchy backstory Maurice and Alec had spun to account for why they weren’t known locally without prying; and, still more fortuitously, for the two ‘distant cousins’ to mostly work independently as a pair, living in the woodland outside the village as well as tending it. Indeed, it was the offer of accommodation, coupled with the forest’s almost magical ancient beauty and its remoteness – from Pendersleigh, from Suburbia, and from anything much – that had enticed them here. Old Ed himself and his wood-store and workshop were located on the fringes of the village – which, perhaps because of its isolation, was surprisingly large, in a sprawling, untidy way. As often in such communities, Ed was a man of many trades – one of which was a pub which also, on occasion, doubled as an auction-house. The village itself had some shops and a weekly market of sorts, but has a curious air for all that. Ed roared that his family had lost most of its smart, able-bodied youngsters to the city; same story across the village for some time now. On the whole, it was left to the aged, the eccentric and the unmarried – like Ed himself – to keep the village limping along, bar (Ed hinted elliptically) the occasional urban fugitive from trouble or scandal.

 

**2: Christmas Eve**

The night before, there had been some larks (as Alec put it) which ended with some bad behaviour of their own, erupting – once they were safely home with the door locked – into delighted, tipsily passionate lovemaking: snogging, frotting and thoroughly misbehaving a much-abused chair in front of the fire, tantalisingly not-quite-naked down on the hearth-rug, then naked in bed.

Understandably cautious about mingling much with the village, but thinking it prudent to fit in (and besides that, natural sociability – Alec’s, mostly, but in his happiness Maurice was finding it infectious – got the better of them), they agreed to some Christmas Eve beers, music and singing at Ed’s tatty but cheerful pub. Closing time found them all stumbling across the mud-furrowed village green (‘Village brown, more like!’ Alec snickered) to midnight carols at the church. But, after the good humour and good company, the carol service proved anaemic and tuneless. The atmosphere reminded Alec of the intolerable condescension of the Durhams and the horrors of service at Pendersleigh; the pallid ascetic vicar reminded Maurice unpleasantly of Borenius.

The only festive spirit came from other restive villagers who had stumbled in from the pubs to nudge, giggle or worse in the back rows. In the dim, barely candlelit, pew, Alec pressed his thigh against Maurice’s and squeezed his hand under cover of their coats. During a lamentably limp rendition of ‘What Can I Give Him?’, Alec’s mischief increased: his hand clasped Maurice’s knee, then began to climb purposefully up Maurice’s thigh, making his cock stand instantly to highly inconvenient anticipatory attention. Praying for his boner to soften while suppressing a mirthful snort at Alec’s choice of hymn, Maurice aimed a discreet (he hoped) elbow at his lover’s ribs and grabbed his arm. It was time to leave, and high time for bed.

The tiny cottage – their home, for now, in their greenwood – was at least two country miles from the church, up a steep track through thick trees – but, despite the mud and snow and the late hour, they sprinted and skipped all the way, soon arm in arm as the village limits retreated in the distance. As they entered the clearing and approached the door, a beautiful moon lit their path.

 

**3: Christmas Morning Redux**

> ‘The _person here_ ,’ Maurice murmured into the part of Alec’s hair still visible above the blankets – teasingly, as if he was correcting Alec’s earlier choice of words or his grammar – ‘ _really isn’t_ bad. At all...’

The murmur built up into a shower of kisses deep into Alec’s curls, progressing down to the nape of his neck.

> ‘…Well, only bad in the _best_ ways.’

Almost inevitably in their spooning position, Maurice’s body soon rolled into motion, pressing and grinding against Alec’s back and backside as he kissed his neck. Then, very quiet:

> ‘Alec – darling – dearest: Happy Christmas.’

Glowing dark eyes and a welcoming mouth twisted round to meet him.

> ‘The happiest Christmas!’ Then, more solemn, his eyes huge. ‘Morrie, I mean it. The happiest Christmas. Love you…’

Alec, who bestowed love so unstintingly with his body, sometimes got tongue-tied putting it into words. ‘…Love you more than I can say,’ he eventually mumbled, his voice thick with emotion.

Saying it in kisses came so much more easily, so they did. Wet, messy and open-mouthed, until Alec couldn’t help rolling in Maurice’s arms to face him fully and do it properly – kisses, and a lot more.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a Yuletide 2016 Treat for DeathFrisbee221, because there can never be enough Maurice/Alec. 
> 
> I intended this fic to be (a lot) longer and better-developed, but ran out of time! Hence the ‘vignette’, and hence posted to Yuletide Madness. I hope you enjoy it!


End file.
